Losing a pet is never easy

Losing a family pet is always hard; especially when the pet has been around longer than the relationship that formed the family.

Jyl was a part of our family before it was a family. Shortly after Traci moved to Kentucky from California, she rescued Jyl from a puppy mill that was planning to put her down since she could no longer have puppies. She was energetic, and could jump five feet in the air. Let's be real: she was the right kind of crazy that you want in a dog. Always happy, always prancing around with her tail up and her tongue sticking out, Jyl was well, unique.

After moving in with me and Tucker (my dog, a Husky-mix), Jyl learned how to hang out in a crate during the day and managed to de-stress. Funny, Tucker has that effect on me as well. They'd typically spend their time together on the weekends watching out the front window of our old house, waiting for the inevitable package delivery.

The beginning of the end

Moving into 2020, Jyl's health started to degrade (along with seemingly everything else in the world - 2020 has been) and we noticed pretty quickly that she was having a hard time.

Once quarantine started in March of 2020 (both Traci and I were forced to work from home due to COVID-19), we noticed how much worse Jyl was doing on a daily basis. We took care of her, and kept her as comfortable as possible for the next several months as her illnesses kept progressing. We had a few (expensive) runs to the emergency Vet, all of which Jyl made it through. Ultimately, we got to a point where she seemed to be in constant, severe pain on a daily basis and she kind of let us know it was time to say goodbye.

For many of us, myself included, our pets are just as close as family, if not even closer. Pets are there for you twenty-four hours a day. They don't care about stress. They don't care about anything else going on in the world. They just care about you.